


Every Petal is a Wish

by HopefulNebula



Category: Sunshine (2007)
Genre: Backstory, Bechdel Test Pass, Canon Character of Color, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Ensemble Cast, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, POV Third Person, Plants, Present Tense, Slice of Life, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/pseuds/HopefulNebula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of the plants in Icarus II's oxygen garden are carefully selected by Corazon and the Habitation Team either for their ability to convert CO2 into oxygen or to produce nutritious food. Corazon understands the need for crew to have links to home, however, and suggests that they allow each crew member one plant just for themselves.</p><p>This is the story of those plants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Petal is a Wish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lastingdreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastingdreams/gifts).



> Thank you to freneticfloetry for the awesome beta feedback!
> 
> Note: This is only rated T because Mace doesn't care whether the language he uses is appropriate for all ages.

Most of the plants in Icarus II's oxygen garden are carefully selected by Corazon and the Habitation Team either for their ability to convert CO2 into oxygen or to produce nutritious food. Corazon understands the need for crew to have links to home, however, and suggests that they allow each crew member one plant just for themselves.

This is the story of those plants.

* * *

**_Solidago multiradiata_ **

"You can choose from almost any of the plants that are still growing on earth, or whose seeds have been salvaged from the Svalbard vault," Corazon announces one day a month before they're scheduled to board Icarus II for the initial year of orbital tests. "No trees, no climbing vines, nothing with hard roots that go deeper than one meter. One way or another, we'll only be spending a few years on board, so I don't recommend picking anything that takes a long time to grow. And I get veto power, so pick early in case I have to tell you that your choice doesn't play nicely with the plants we need."

Harvey has no idea what to pick, so he decides after ten minutes or so of deliberation to ask his sister.

His next call home is the day after Corazon's announcement. (They're still allowed live video comms during this period of their on-planet isolation, thankfully. Harvey tries not to think about what it's going to be like when they reach the dead zone. He's spent his entire life connected to everybody else via signals, and he knows no voluntary non-com periods can compare to what he'll experience in two years.)

"How the hell am I supposed to choose a favorite _plant_ , Hannah? I can count the number of live plants I saw at the Complex on two hands."

"Hey, I've got two years on you," she says. "Why do you think I'd know any more about it than you would?"

She has a point. Growing up in the Hudson Bay Communications Complex, they had learned a lot about insulation and comms and making friends they'd never meet in person, and not a lot about being outdoors.

The thing is, conceding points doesn't come naturally to him.

"Because you're not the one who's locked underground with seven other people to make sure nobody goes crazy before we do what we have to do? I don't know." 

Hannah rolls her eyes so hard he can practically hear it. "All right. I know what to do. Give me a minute." She faces away from her monitor's camera as she types. "All right. Um... Goldenrod."

"Goldenrod? Why?"

"Well, it says here that flowers used to have meanings. Like red roses mean love, and daisies mean innocence. According to this list, there's even one for misanthropy. But goldenrods mean success."

Harvey blinks. "And we need as much of that as we can get." 

"You said it, not me," she says.

Harvey makes the note and asks how Hannah's boyfriend is doing.

-

That night after dinner, he approaches Corazon and tells her he's chosen his plant.

"Goldenrod?" she asks. "Does it matter which species?"

"Um... no, I don't think so," he replies.

"Good. I think I can find one that can work. If you don't mind me asking: why goldenrod? It used to be considered a weed in a lot of places." It used to be. Now, any green growing thing is precious and rare.

"Oh, I just think we could use something bright. And evidently it's a symbol of success."

And it lets him bring a piece of his one remaining family member with him, but he's damned if he reveals that to anyone else.

* * *

**_Platycodon grandiflorus_ **

In many ways, Kaneda is the most powerful person on the planet, and he has been ever since he got the call that Earth had lost contact with Icarus I.

Officially, he knows he has a hierarchy of people at NASA to answer to. But where he and his crew are going, NASA can't follow, and they know it as well as he does. Every major decision regarding the mission beyond launch is ultimately up to him.

He doesn't need another choice to make right now, especially one as unimportant as this, but he knows that making himself stand out among the crew so close to launch would be counterproductive. 

He ends up asking Corazon to choose on his behalf, though he swears her to secrecy.

She looks at him for a moment, as if she's appraising him. They've known each other long enough at this point that Kaneda knows better than to interrupt.

"All right," she says. "I presume there aren't any plants you have a particular attachment to." It's as much a question as it is a statement.

"You presume correctly."

"You have so much to think of," she continues. "Such a great weight to bear, more than the rest of us. You won't want something serious. We'll choose it for looks."

Kaneda nods.

"Trey and Searle both chose yellow flowers. Maybe we can have something that contrasts with them. Purple. Or... or blue. I think I know what you're choosing," she says.

"What is it?" he asks.

"You'll find out, in time."

-

The preparations for launch and then the in-orbit training push the conversation out of Kaneda's mind, so when Corazon summons him to the oxygen garden, the first thing he asks is "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she says. "There's just something I want to show you. It will only take a minute."

He wants to ask her if it can wait until he's slept, but there's something in her voice that makes him reconsider. Besides, it would be bad form for him to sound like he was complaining about his work.

Corazon beckons to him from the aft section of the oxygen garden, and he makes his way through the sea of green to a bundle of blue.

"Your plant is almost blooming," she tells him. "You picked a Chinese bellflower. Touch it, right there." She gestures to the pointed tip of a balloon-shaped flower, just barely not touching it herself.

He does. The petals bend down a bit, then unfurl below his finger as if they have been unbound, taking the shape of a cobalt blue star.

His expression must reflect all the wonder and surprise he feels overlaying his fatigue, because Corazon's voice has just a hint of a laugh in it. "It's the floral version of bubble wrap," she tells him. "I thought you could use something you can play with."

"You were right," he says, so quietly he isn't even sure she can hear it.

* * *

**_Fragaria x ananassa_ **  


The restriction on trees _hurts_.

As the second youngest person on Icarus II, Cassie has no clear memories of a time when the sun shone brightly. But she remembers when it was possible for people not living on the equator to get fresh fruit on a whim.

She wants pears, or oranges.

She chooses strawberries instead.

It doesn't take long for Cassie to discover the downside of her choice.

"Icarus?" she asks one day when she's taking her lunch in the oxygen garden.

"Yes, Cassie?" the computer replies.

"Who was the last person to come in here?"

"My records show that the last person to access the oxygen garden before your entry was Corazon."

"Thank you, Icarus. Did she touch my strawberry plant at all?" Cassie asks, though she knows the answer already.

"While I cannot verify which individual plants she touched, she did extensive work in the aft section of the oxygen garden this morning."

Well, then.

Cassie takes a couple of deep breaths, eats her lunch, and gets back to her work -- they both have jobs to do, and it's not like she's getting it _back_ , anyway -- but after dinner she takes Corazon aside for a talk.

"Hey, did you touch my strawberry plant this morning?" she asks. "Because there was a big one that was just about to be perfectly ripe, and when I went for lunch today it was gone. I don't mind sharing them, I really don't. I just want people to ask permission first."

"I noticed it too," Corazon replies. "I thought you'd been peckish in the night."

They look at each other.

"Icarus?" they both ask at once.

"Yes, ladies?" Icarus replies. (Cassie will never admit it to Mace, but she finds it amusing that he taught Icarus to address them as such when they're working with her.)

"Who accessed the oxygen garden between... what time did you leave yesterday?"

"20:30. I went back after dinner to check on one of the condensers."

"20:30 yesterday and 07:30 this morning?"

"My records show Doctor Searle accessed the garden at 22:42 last night."

"Thank you, Icarus. I'll have to have a talk with him," Cassie says. "Sorry for accusing you."

"No need to be sorry," says Corazon. "We all need to learn each other's ground rules if we're going to complete this mission."

"Yeah. If we can't even get along while we're still in Earth orbit, there's not much hope."

Corazon nods. "If the boys aren't taking up the lounge, do you want to play a game of Go?" Corazon asks.

Right now, there's nothing more Cassie wants to do, even if she knows she'll lose horribly.

* * *

**_Brassica oleracea var. botrytis_ **

Capa chooses Romanesco broccoli because it reminds him of his payload.

He lets the rest of the crew think it's because he likes the taste -- why else would he bring it aboard when Corazon is already growing regular broccoli? -- although it's a good thing he does.

But really, it's the math of it. Pieces build on each other until they become infinite, a predictable chaos. He looks at it and sees the bomb he designed.

On the nights when he closes his eyes and descends into orange heat, he replaces the images of fusion gone wrong with those of vibrant green florets. It reminds him of the beauty of what he's doing. It helps him replace the images in his head with those of a single spark, then two, four, eight, until his emotions are replaced by numbers and symbols and logarithms.

It reminds him that what will happen, will happen naturally. There is no other way for the universe to unfold.

* * *

**_Helianthus annuus_ **

"I have to ask: could you have made a more obvious choice?" Mace asks, not long after they leave Earth's gravity field. Trey can't see exactly where in the oxygen garden Mace is pointing -- they're facing different directions while Trey spots him on the ladder -- but he knows what Mace is talking about.

Trey's just surprised that it's taken a year for anyone to ask. All Cory had asked initially was whether he was okay with replanting it periodically.

"I'd never seen one before," he says. "Not a real one. And I wanted to. You know, the tallest one in the world grew to eight meters high? But you're kind of right. Somebody had to do it. Also, the seeds were my mom's favorite snack, before... you know. Before."

He remembers the one time he'd eaten them himself as a child. His mom had bought a bag online once when he was about ten, and she'd split it into thirds to share with Trey and his ma. He hadn't known what to do with them at first -- was he supposed to eat them whole? -- before she showed him how to savor the salty flavor of the shell, then break it open with his teeth and eat the core.

It had been messy, and it had been salty, and it had been _happy_.

He has no way to convey this to Mace, though, not without messing it up horribly, so he shifts his grip on the ladder and tries to change the subject.

"You OK up there?"

Mace grunts, which Trey takes as assent, and they're silent for a few minutes.

Maybe it's because this is the first time in a while he's thought of his moms, or maybe it's because they're within sight of his little section of garden, but he decides that maybe changing the subject wasn't such a good thing.

"You know, the first of my flowers is almost ready to harvest," he says to Mace. "I'm planning to roast the seeds up with some salt and maybe a little of the cayenne powder. If you want some of the seeds, I'd be willing to share."

It's hard to tell from this angle, but he thinks Mace is smiling. "Sounds delicious, Trey. Do you have a 15 millimeter Phillips-head down there?"

Trey does, and he hands it up, only halfway listening to Mace's forthcoming rant about the abject stupidity of needing more than one kind of screwdriver on Icarus. By now, he can recite most of the rant by heart.

* * *

**_Crossandra infundibuliformis_ **

Sometimes Searle likes to imagine what the rest of the crew thinks about why he chose the plant he did. 

Perhaps the crew expects the mission's medical specialist to choose sage, or aloe vera. But they have all the medical supplies they need and more, and he wants his personal choice to be _personal_.

Perhaps they expect him to bring something that reminds him of home. But the only plants he has a particular attachment to are ones that violate Corazon's rules.

Perhaps they assume he's made his choice for symbolic reasons, like Harvey. That a firecracker flower holds a secret meaning. If they do, they haven't asked about it. He likes to think they're curious, though.

None of them will ever know that, when Corazon made her announcement, Searle went into the database and found the largest, most extravagant set of blooms he could in his favorite color.

Let them wonder. It's far more amusing than the alternative.

* * *

**_Rosmarinus officinalis_ **

Mace sprinkles some freshly crushed leaves into the vegetable stir-fry he's making, and Capa makes a face. "You know," Capa says, "one of these days somebody's gonna get sick of rosemary and kill you in your sleep."

Mace glowers, though his expression is mostly for show. (Mostly.) "You do realize I'm the one holding the knife right now? And that I have the ability to make sure the temperature in your quarters is never comfortable again?"

Capa laughs quietly, and says nothing. Mace thinks it's perhaps the first wise decision he's made since they met.

"Rosemary is the perfect herb. You can add it to anything. It can even make the shitty MRE's we have in storage palatable. Corazon hangs some by the vent in her quarters. She says it helps her sleep."

What Mace doesn't say, because it's absolutely none of Capa's business, is that his father had taught him about rosemary. The same man who had taught him how to fix a car, how to climb a tree, how to throw a punch. It had been just the two of them, growing up. And then he'd been caught up in the deep freeze and subsequent riots of '44, and then it had been just Mace.

He isn't a sentimental person, but he thinks he's allowed this little bit of remembrance.

* * *

**_Aspidistra elatior_ **

Corazon, who's measured out her life in greenhouses and who knows exactly what she'll be missing, takes the most time to choose.

She briefly considers calla lilies, but those had always been Danilo's thing. She doesn't want to bring the dead with her on this journey. 

She considers lavender or something similar, but Mace's rosemary will work well enough for her purposes, and lavender won't feel right to her without bees. 

What she needs is pure _life_. Something impossible to kill. Something resilient.

Of course, half the reason behind her "no climbing vines" restriction was to prevent people from even considering any of the super-resilient plants that would strangle the rest of the garden. Even so, she smiles at the memory of the time someone had introduced kudzu into one of her greenhouses, and she and Danilo had spent the next year trying to keep it at bay.

The idea comes to her only as she's finalizing the list to send to Habitation. It starts as a stray thought about the strength they will all need to draw on, and continues as the memory of a spot of green among the gray.

(In her memory, it is one of the last unseasonably warm days. Perhaps she is on a walk with her school. The details may elude her, but the spirit of it is strong as anything she's ever known.

 _It gets its name_ , the voice of her memory says, _because it's so tough. It can survive pretty much anything you do to it. But it isn't like water hyacinth; it doesn't take over everything in its path._ )

She adds the genus and species of her chosen plant to her list and presses "Send."

This crew will have to be made of cast iron. It's only fitting that she should take a cast-iron plant along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corazon's plant: [Aspidistra elatior](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Aspidistra_elatior1.jpg/1024px-Aspidistra_elatior1.jpg), the cast-iron plant

**Author's Note:**

> Images of everyone's choices:
> 
> Harvey: [_Solidago multiradiata_](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solidagomultiradiata.jpg), the Rocky Mountain goldenrod  
>  Kaneda: [_Platycodon grandiflorus_](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Platycodon_grandiflorum2.jpg), the Chinese bellflower  
>  Cassie: [_Fragaria x ananassa_](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chandler_strawberries.jpg), the garden strawberry  
>  Capa: [_Brassica oleracea var. botrytis_](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Romanesco_1.jpg), or Romanesco broccoli  
>  Trey: [_Helianthus annuus_](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sonnenblumen_im_Bund.JPG), the sunflower  
>  Searle: [_Crossandra infundibuliformis_](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crossandra_infundibuliformis_2008.JPG), the firecracker flower  
>  Mace: [_Rosmarinus officinalis_](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosemary_bush.jpg), or rosemary  
>  Corazon: [_Aspidistra elatior_](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aspidistra_elatior1.jpg), the cast-iron plant


End file.
